SOUTH BEND – It certainly wasn’t close to the look Micah Shrewsberry wanted — or one that he would ever want.
And that may say everything about how much there is to learn and how so very far there is to go for his first Notre Dame men’s basketball team to find some significant success.
Trailing Georgetown by two Saturday afternoon, with the final nine seconds of overtime ticking down in a lively Purcell Pavilion, the basketball wound up in the hands of 6-foot-10 sophomore center Kebba Njie, still playing with a taped hand following an early-season injury, behind the 3-point line.
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It didn’t end well.
His fifth 3-point shot of the season — he has made one — with three seconds to go, was blocked by 6-9 Supreme Cook and the 4-6 Irish fell, 72-68.
What did Shrewsberry want?
The ball was meant to go to the right side of the floor and space was cleared to give the ball-handler, in this case 5-11 freshman guard Markus Burton, some room to maneuver near the lane. Instead, he wound up on the left side of the lane and hit a wall of defenders before kicking it out to Njie, surprisingly waiting at the top of the arc.
“You know, in those moments and maybe this is youth or people not thinking the game, but those moments throughout college basketball all time (down two in final seconds), there's a shot at the rim,” said Shrewsberry. “And those games are usually tied after a tip-in or offensive rebound. So why are you standing at the 3-point line? Simple as that.”
All part of the learning process certainly, but Georgetown (7-4) is in a similar situation, picked to finish eighth in an 11-team Big East Conference. Long-time, and successful, former Providence coach Ed Cooley is in his first year with the Hoyas and is rebuilding this season with 10 transfers. One of those, Jayden Epps, from Illinois, is averaging 19 points a game but was out Saturday due to illness.
“Winnable game,’’ Shrewsberry said, and the Irish were even favored by a couple buckets.
But generating any kind of consistent, cohesive offense has been illusive and was the case again against the Hoyas.
The Irish shot just 39.4% (26-66) from the field, 25% (8-for-32) from the 3-point line and 61.5% (8-13) from the free throw line while the Hoyas went 10-for-22 on threes (45.5%) and 18 of 23 (78.3%) from the line.
Burton, ND’s only double figure scorer coming in at 15.7 a game, led the Irish with 17, but was 6-for-20 from the field, including 1-for-6 on threes. Julian Roper II and J.R. Konieczny each had 13 and Braeden Shrewsberry 10.
The Irish, averaging just 64 points a game coming in, held their own on the boards and gave themselves a chance by limiting Georgetown to 41.5% shooting overall, and also capitalizing on 15 Georgetown turnovers to just 10 for ND.
The Irish trailed by as many as nine with 14:59 to go in regulation.
“They got to the rim and got fouled,” Micah Shrewsberry said of the Hoyas. “I thought they outworked us.
“I thought Drew Fielder came in here and outworked every single one of our bigs. We’ve got to play hard, man. He's a freshman. So like there's no excuses. But he was running hard. He was playing hard. And our guys were behind the play.”
The 6-10, 216-pound Fielder was an unlikely star. Averaging 4.4 coming in, he finished with a team-high 16, going 5-for-7 from the field.
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Slowly, the Irish started chipping away at the nine-point deficit and finally tied it at 60 on a breakaway dunk by Tae Davis off of a Burton steal with 1:25 to go.
It looked like the Irish had it won on a dazzling move and layup in heavy traffic by Burton for a 62-60 lead with eight seconds to play.
“We had a chance to lay down in this game and we came back again,” Micah Shrewsberry said. “They show up every single day. Right? Whether I'm on them, whether I'm happy with whatever, like they show up every single day and they bounce back every single day.
“So there's something inside of them that says they want to be good. But they don't know how to be good yet. And it starts with trust. And once we start trusting each other, once we start trusting the staff, once we start trusting the discipline of our system, and we might be good.”
In the final seconds of regulation, the defense caved, and Texas transfer and freshman Rowan Brumbaugh came off a screen for an easy run to the right side of the lane and got a shot off from a few feet away over Njie with a second to play to send it to overtime.
A 3-pointer by the Hoyas’ Dontrez Styles in the first minute of overtime put the Irish in a 65-62 hole.
From that point on it was Burton vs. Georgetown.
A jumper from the lane, another special move to get to the rim and his two free throws gave ND a 68-67 lead with 1:38 to go.
It didn’t last long.
Ismael Massoud, a Kansas State transfer, then hit a 3-pointer for a 70-68 Georgetown lead with 1:15 left. Burton couldn’t match it, missing two free throws on the next Irish possession.
Notre Dame got the ball back following Brumbaugh’s miss from the lane. Roper pulled down the rebound with 13 seconds to play, setting up ND’s final possession.
Micah Shrewsberry keeps waiting to see more success from the perimeter to help loosen things up inside.
His club is among the worst in the country in 3-point shooting percentage, starting the day under 28%.
“I thought in the first half we took bad ones,” he said. “When we take good shots, when we take rhythm threes, we're good shooting threes. It’s when we take threes off the dribble … It's been talked about. I'm coaching this team every single day. I'm showing them film every single day. Right? But at some point in time, you’ve got to start doing it. The numbers don't lie.”
The Irish have a couple games before Christmas. They play The Citadel at home Tuesday at 6 p.m. EST and host Marist at 8 p.m. on Friday.
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